Thoughts on reading the journals, essays and letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson

The true medicine for hard times seems to be sleep. Use so much bodily labor as shall ensure sleep, then you arise refreshed and in good spirits and in Hope. That have I this morn. Yesterday afternoon I stirred the earth about my shrubs & trees & quarreled with the piper-grass and now I have slept, & no longer am morose nor feel twitchings in the muscles of my face with visitors by. The bumblebee & the pine warbler seem to me the proper object of attention in these disastrous times*. I am less inclined to ethics, to history, to aught wise & grave & practick, & feel a new joy in nature. I am glad it is not my duty to preach these few Sundays & I would invite the sufferers by this screwing panic to recover peace through these fantastic amusements during the tornado.

*The hollowness so sad we feel after too much talking is an expressive hint.